The vulgarity of Trump Palace is breathtaking. US Magazine did a piece on it a year ago, so we can see how hideous it really is.
Compare the White House.
You don’t need eye protection in the second place.
Ice cream, Mandrake? Children’s ice cream?
Nov 20th, 2016 12:03 pm | By Ophelia BensonTrump’s national security guy is a conspiracy-monger. Business Insider reports:
The retired general whom President-elect Donald Trump tapped to advise him on matters of national security has promoted stories involving conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton.
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn shared two thinly sourced articles on his Twitter account alleging that Clinton was involved in everything from “money laundering” to “sex crimes with children” just days before the election.
On November 2, the general tweeted a link to a website called True Pundit, which claimed to have spoken with “NYPD sources” involved in the investigation of Anthony Weiner. Flynn called it a “must read” — which many supporters likely did, since it was favorited and retweeted more than 12,000 times.
In other words he tweeted the link with a strong recommendation.
The fabricated news story originated on a number of right-wing blogs that were reporting little more than anonymous postings on internet message boards. As PolitiFact pointed out, the conspiracy theory that implicated Clinton in a “political pedophile sex ring” being investigated by the NYPD and FBI had no basis in fact.
Spokesmen for both agencies denied any investigation, according to PolitiFact.
So he’s precisely the wrong kind of person for that job, isn’t he. He’s another Jack D. Ripper, and we don’t want those as national security honcho.
Flynn headed the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2012 to 2014 before he was reportedly forced out for mismanagement of the agency. Flynn has repeatedly claimed his firing came because of his views on radical Islam.
Measure the headlines
Nov 20th, 2016 11:16 am | By Ophelia BensonA drawback to getting news online is that one doesn’t necessarily see how the news is presented and ordered – what is above the fold in huge headlines and what is below it in ordinary headlines. Jamison Foser has shown me what I’ve been missing.
Reminder: The entire @NYTimes front page above the fold was devoted to … possible existence of new email. pic.twitter.com/T0mv0ZVQv7
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) November 19, 2016
Big headlines right at the top of the page, the whole entire above the fold occupied by Clinton email news.
On the other hand…
Today, @NYTimes gives news of the apparent president-elect paying $25 million to settle a fraud lawsuit more subdued treatment. pic.twitter.com/rbGatOSoEr
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) November 19, 2016
See there? The “email news” was empty bullshit, calculated to damage Clinton and help Trump. The Trump Not-University fraud suit is not empty bullshit – it’s about real fraud, in which Trump – the president-elect – cheated gullible people out of a lot of money. A hugely rich man cheated people with little money (if they had much money they wouldn’t bother with any real-estate “university”) out of a big chunk of money – yet that gets muffled treatment, while Clinton’s mistake with emails gets reported like high treason.
The email story was before the election and the fraud story was after, but that’s not a sufficient reason for such disproportionate coverage.
Just looked at the @nytimes and HAMILTON BOOS PENCE is huge headline, while TRUMP SETTLES FRAUD SUIT is THIRD story, small font. Wow. https://t.co/z4ti2PDDmh
— Melissa de la Cruz (@MelissadelaCruz) November 19, 2016
The fraud suit is a very important story. The guy who will be president in under 9 weeks settled a lawsuit over his cheating a bunch of people out of thousands of dollars each. Our next president is a rich guy who preys on poor people and steals what little money they have. That is a major story.
Recall the Clinton Foundation stories then read this, which doesn't mention conflict of interest until paragraph 12. https://t.co/OVOTYQ9SHn
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) November 19, 2016
I guess we should look on the bright side? He doesn’t roast and eat babies, that we know of?
Other issues
Nov 20th, 2016 9:55 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Times suggests Trump’s imbecilic tweeting may be an intentional diversionary tactic.
But even as Mr. Trump’s transition team appeared eager to embrace a more disciplined approach to the process of building out his administration, the president-elect’s Twitter complaints about “Hamilton” and “Saturday Night Live” provided a distraction.
That may have been the intention. Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts diverted attention from other issues, including a $25 million settlement in a lawsuit against Trump University, concerns about conflicts of interest involving the president-elect’s business dealings, and questions about the propriety of potentially appointing his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to a White House post.
Not around here they didn’t. I posted about both.
That’s the thing about Trump, as I keep saying – he’s so horrible on so many fronts, it’s very difficult to keep track of them all. But it’s not impossible. His childish tweets aren’t going to prevent me from pointing out his fraud and corruption and nepotism, along with his racism and misogyny and fascism.
He may succeed in trashing everything, but we will keep the records.
Trump v Saturday Night Live
Nov 20th, 2016 9:46 am | By Ophelia BensonOur petulant imbecile of a president-elect is still whining and complaining on Twitter, along with trying to tell us all what to do. He is so confused. He seems to think the president (and even the pres-elect) can just bark out orders and have them obeyed. That’s not how this works.
The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016
God he’s stupid. He really is like a child, a very young and very spoiled child. That interpolated “which I hear is highly overrated” – that’s so transparent and so goofy. No he doesn’t hear that, except from people who are sucking up to him, which they’re doing because he’s rich and tragically powerful. How can he be dense enough to take that at face value? And dense enough to say it in public in aid of his pissy resentment? How can he not notice what a fucking fool it makes him look?
I know; he’s always looked like a fucking fool and he got elected as such. I know. But the election is over now – he shouldn’t still be performing the fucking fool routine.
Numerous patriots will be coming to Bedminster today as I continue to fill out the various positions necessary to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016
Spoken like a true fascist. (Seriously. That’s what fascists say, apart from “Bedminster” and “America.”)
I watched parts of @nbcsnl Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show – nothing funny at all. Equal time for us?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016
Again – he shows himself up. “Nothing funny at all” – because it made fun of him. Not presidential, Donnie from Queens. And the suggestion of “equal time” is ludicrous. It’s a satirical show, and it gets to choose its own subjects.
General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who is being considered for Secretary of Defense, was very impressive yesterday. A true General's General!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016
Uncomplicated disgust. He’s rejoicing in a Defense Secretary nicknamed “Mad Dog” – as if frenzied rage is what the job calls for.
Tee hee
Nov 19th, 2016 5:58 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh look, Milo Yiannopoulos being oh so amusingly “provocative” at Breitbart a few weeks ago – women should have stayed home hawhaw, they were better off there hawhawhaw, having babies is all they’re good for hahahaha.
Feminist propaganda shoved in the faces of previously-content housewives told ladies they would be less happy if they weren’t working a gruelling job like their husbands were. This sort of thinking was designed to make women feel strong and empowered. But the fact is, women have become far more unhappy in the last 35 years.
…
The role of the housewife has been thoroughly and ritually humiliated by successive waves of feminism — as if raising well-adjusted children, keeping a beautiful home and marrying a loving husband is worthy of derision and ridicule. In fact, it’s one of the most important things a woman can do with her life and may be one of the only things women can actually do better than men.
No offense! I mean, sure, if men could bear children we’d have the process streamlined and pain-free by now, but for now, women are the only gender capable of bringing another life into existence. That is a genuinely beautiful thing that should be respected and celebrated, not looked down upon by menopausal, droopy-eyed office drones who spend their nights at home with a wine bottle, wondering where the stench of cat piss is coming from. (It’s coming from them.)
Isn’t he a card? I just love people who say vicious shit on purpose to annoy the people they say it about, don’t you? They’re such fun. Their hair may look like the icing on a party cake, but they’re fun fun fun.
Birth control makes you fat, and as we all know being fat is disgusting and should never be allowed in a civilised society. A 2009 study from the University of Texas found that women using DMPA gain an average of 11 pounds over three years, a 3-4 per cent increase. Ladies: are you really so desperate to get laid that you’d willingly fatten yourself up like a prize-winning sow?
Healthy, fertile women seek out men who are genetically different to them. Women on the Pill do the opposite, seeking out men who are closer to their own tribe. This perhaps is an explanation for the rise of feminized males, so desperate to get laid that they mimic the behaviour and mannerisms of women.
Now at the heart of the executive branch of the US government. Such drollery.
Step right up, rent a bed in Trump’s new hotel, Ambassador
Nov 19th, 2016 5:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is completely astounding.
Friday evening, the Washington Post reported that about 100 foreign diplomats gathered at President-elect Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC to “to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.” The tour included a look at the hotel’s $20,000 a night “town house” suite. The Post also quoted some of the diplomats saying they intended to stay at the hotel in order to ingratiate themselves to the incoming president.
ARE YOU SERIOUS???
He is marketing his new hotel to foreign diplomats?
I’m out of swears, out of facial expressions, out of anything that can express my disgust.
“Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’” said one diplomat from an Asian nation. “Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’”
No. No no no no no. No no no. What’s rude, and corrupt beyond belief, is for a new president to flog his new hotel to visiting diplomats.
The incoming president, in other words, is actively soliciting business from agents of foreign governments. Many of these agents, in turn, said that they will accept the president-elect’s offer to do business because they want to win favor with the new leader of the United States.
There’s a word for that. The word is “bribery.” Can you say “bribery”? I thought you could.
Trump should set up a catering business in the White House kitchen and make all visitors pay him for their meals. That would be dignified.
Read, my child
Nov 19th, 2016 4:52 pm | By Ophelia BensonJohn Lewis won a National Book Award on Wednesday.
Watch him accept it.
He’s trying to project strength
Nov 19th, 2016 4:22 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Times does a story on Trump’s temper tantrum about the “Hamilton” rebellion.
The clash between the “Hamilton” actors and Mr. Trump captured the sharply divergent feelings of many American voters 11 days after the election: a showdown between the values of multiculturalism on the left, including the racially diverse “Hamilton” cast and the world of entertainment, and the conservative principles of the incoming Trump administration, which was backed strongly by working-class white voters and traditional Republicans.
Actually no. It’s not “the conservative principles” that have so many of us fighting back. It’s the noisy racism, the venom, the bullying, the sneering, the insults. It’s the calling a senator “Pocahontas” and the many years as a birther and the refusal to acknowledge that the Central Park 5 were innocent. It’s shit like that. It’s the open racism. That’s not any kind of principle, including conservative. Many conservatives are also racists, yes, but that doesn’t make racism a principle. I think the cast was appealing to Pence to get Trump to be less horrible.
His maneuver, in two posts to Twitter on Saturday morning, stunned the cast members and, judging by social media, jolted many Americans who are worried about the President-elect’s tolerance for dissent after a campaign in which he was criticized for inflaming racial tensions.
I’m not worried about Trump’s total lack of tolerance for dissent. That’s one thing I think he has no power to put into practice. He can’t make us shut up. Ironically, making himself president means anyone can say almost anything about him with impunity, since he’s about as public a figure as we can have in this country. The idea of suing us for libel is laughable. I’m disgusted by his intolerance of dissent, but not worried about it.
The values and politics championed by the cast are in sharp relief to remarks and actions by Mr. Trump, who has called for deporting undocumented immigrants, declined to forcefully denounce expressions of bigotry among his allies, and so far has appointed only white men to major cabinet positions. He has also pledged to change libel laws and sue news media organizations whose coverage he does not like, and has demonized street protesters who have criticized him.
He can pledge until his comb-over flies upward, but it won’t do him any good. He can’t change the libel laws, and if he sues media organizations he will lose bigly.
Mr. Trump lashed out at the show, the most acclaimed Broadway production in years, at a time of demonstrations against his coming presidency. Those include frequent street protests outside Trump Tower along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which is less than a mile from the theater showing “Hamilton.” The president-elect has both castigated the protesters and, after being chided for those remarks, praised them for their passion. Advisers, however, say he has been frustrated by the suspicion and hostility that the demonstrators and other Americans continue to hold about his election.
Good. Good good good. I want him to be frustrated. I want him to be miserable with it. Yes, I’m that vindictive.
Some Republican strategists said they were not surprised that Mr. Trump chose to attack “Hamilton,” noting that the president-elect believed deeply in trying to project strength in the face of any kind of opposition.
That is to say, noting that the president-elect is a bully and an asshole.
“Even though many are unhappy with his election and might show disrespect, his victory is legitimate and he will demand respect for his presidency and those that he chose to serve with him,” said Ed Rollins, a veteran adviser to Ronald Reagan and many other Republicans. “This is how he will govern with strength.”
He can demand all he likes, but we don’t have to obey him. That’s not how this works. He’s not god, he’s not The King, he’s not an absolute dictator, and he can’t make us submit to him. I’m not going to respect his presidency. He attained it by relentlessly lying, just for one thing – why should I respect the outcome?
Nope. He’s going to wreck the country, but he can’t make us shut up. Get used to it, Donnie from Queens.
The Voting Rights Act
Nov 19th, 2016 12:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonAri Berman points out in a Times op-ed that the Trump Supreme Court appointments will very likely kill the Voting Rights Act.
The ruling in Shelby was bad enough. What was the result of Shelby?
Fourteen states had new voting restrictions in effect in 2016, including strict voter ID laws, fewer opportunities for early voting and reductions in the number of polling places. These restrictions depressed turnout in key states like Wisconsin, particularly among black voters.
Now it will get much worse.
A grave danger comes from the Supreme Court. If Donald J. Trump appoints a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia to fill the current vacancy, as he has pledged to do, there could be five votes to further gut the Voting Rights Act. Conservatives will target Section 2 of the law, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race or color. (This provision was successfully used to challenge voting restrictions in North Carolina and Texas this year.)
When the current chief justice of the Supreme Court, John G. Roberts Jr., was a lawyer in the Justice Department in the early 1980s, he led a charge against Section 2. He argued in a 1981 memo that the provision should block only those voting laws that were found to be intentionally discriminatory. This was a much higher standard (and in practice, much more difficult to establish) than showing that a voting law had a discriminatory outcome. “Violations of Section 2 should not be made too easy to prove,” Mr. Roberts wrote. If the Supreme Court were to adopt Mr. Roberts’s 1981 position today, the country’s most important civil rights law would be effectively dead.
We would go back to pre-1964. That would be horrific.
Mr. Trump’s Justice Department will also present a severe threat to voting rights. It could choose not to vigorously enforce the Voting Rights Act, instead pressing states to take more aggressive action to combat alleged voter fraud. This could include purging voter rolls and starting investigations into voter-registration organizations. As a United States attorney in the 1980s, Jeff Sessions, Mr. Trump’s choice for attorney general, charged black civil rights activists in Alabama with voter fraud. (They were acquitted.) He has called the Voting Rights Act “a piece of intrusive legislation,” and supported the Supreme Court’s Shelby decision, saying “if you go to Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, people aren’t being denied the vote because of the color of their skin.”
Things will be bad in the states, too. And then there’s Congress.
Republicans in Congress could also jump into the fray. Senator Ted Cruz has introduced legislation to require proof of citizenship such as a passport or a birth certificate to vote in federal elections. Mandating a government-issued photo ID for federal elections — which disproportionately burdens low-income voters and minorities — is another top conservative priority. Kevin D. Williamson of National Review has called on Congress to repeal the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which allows voters to register at the Department of Motor Vehicles and other public agencies.
…
The Voting Rights Act once enjoyed bipartisan support, but that consensus has collapsed. Recent elections illustrate that when more people vote, Democrats tend to do better, which is why Republicans want to restrict access to the ballot. After this year, the party that claimed the election was rigged will be the one doing the real rigging.
People who know Trump say he’s a lifelong jerk so why stop now?
Nov 19th, 2016 11:45 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Times reports on how President Pussygrabber is adjusting to his new job. The first sentence is not a confidence-builder.
Donald J. Trump sits high in Trump Tower in New York, spending hours on the phone with friends, television personalities and donors to ask if they know people to recommend for his cabinet.
Very deadpan. ARE YOU SERIOUS? The man is asking tv personalities to recommend people for the cabinet???
Jesus h fucking christ.
He does a transition meeting early but then he goes back to his morning routine of reading the NY Times and Post and watching “Morning Joe” on the television machine.
He gets angry when members of his inner circle get too much of the spotlight, as Rudolph W. Giuliani did when headlines about his millions of dollars in speaking fees appeared as the former New York mayor was publicly promoting himself to be Mr. Trump’s secretary of state.
And Mr. Trump has happily resumed control of his Twitter feed, using it to bash targets in the news media and criticize the cast of the Broadway musical “Hamilton” for imploring Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who was in the audience Friday night, to govern on behalf of all Americans.
Because that’s what presidents do – they ask random people if they know anyone to appoint to the cabinet, and tweet their fury when anyone dares to talk back.
As a parade of job seekers, TV talking heads and statesmen like Henry Kissinger paraded through the lobby of Trump Tower this past week, Mr. Trump ran his presidential transition from his triplex on the 58th floor much the way he ran his campaign and his business before that — schmoozing, rewarding loyalty, fomenting infighting among advisers and moving confidently forward through a series of fits and starts.
Great last item – so Trump – confidently jerking back and forth like a wind-up toy.
President Obama, who met with Mr. Trump two days after the election, has held out hope that the gravity of the presidency will change the former reality show star. But people close to the 70-year-old president-elect say that he has such long-held habits formed by fame, wealth and the freedom to have done whatever he wanted that they remain skeptical, at least for now, that he will transform to fit the constraints of the White House.
Well quite. Also, add to “fame, wealth and the freedom to have done whatever he wanted” stupidity and obstinacy and shallowness. His lacks are not only contingent, not only the product of money and tv stardom – they’re also part of his character. He’s a bad human being who has never been forced or persuaded or inspired to learn to be a better one.
People close to Mr. Trump nonetheless say he is more focused now than he was in the first few days after his surprise victory. He was nervous and jolted, they said, by the 90-minute Oval Office meeting with Mr. Obama, and for the first time appeared to take in the enormousness of the job.
That’s a perfect example of how shallow and stupid he is. What kind of lox runs for the presidency without ever bothering to find out what it entails??
He is proud, they say, that he has so rapidly named people for his cabinet and senior staff…
Jesus. Is he proud when he pees in the toilet? Is he proud when he eats all his din-din?
There were initial reports from senior officials within Mr. Trump’s orbit that Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporter in the campaign’s final weeks, was the leading candidate for secretary of state. But the headlines about Mr. Giuliani’s business interests bothered Mr. Trump, who was urged by several business leaders and some media hosts to reconsider the option. Suddenly, he arranged a Saturday meeting with one of his fiercest critics, Mitt Romney, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
And you know why he’s interested in Romney? It’s because he looks the part. He looks like an actor who could play a Secretary of State on the television machine.
Transition officials say the meeting with Mr. Romney, a moderate Republican who was the party’s nominee for president in 2012, may not have been simply for show. They say that Mr. Trump believes that Mr. Romney, with his patrician bearing, looks the part of a top diplomat right out of “central casting” — the same phrase Mr. Trump used to describe Mike Pence before choosing him as his running mate.
(So does Trump ever worry about his own explosion-in-a-pimp-factory appearance?)
Yet Mr. Trump loves the tension and drama of a selection process, and has sought to stoke it. A senior adviser described the meeting, in part, as Mr. Romney simply coming to pay his respects to the president-elect and “kiss his ring.”
Yeah. This is why we have to refuse the normalization. We have to refuse to kiss his ring. We have to refuse his Twitter orders to apologize and shut up. We have to keep pointing out, as with the underdressed emperor, how fucking naked he really is.
He doesn’t like it when people do that, or even edge too close to doing it.
Mr. Trump was angered when Mr. Christie did not defend him after 11-year-old audio emerged of the candidate boasting about committing sexual assaults.
Yeah. Christie should have been out there saying how admirable and presidential it is to go around bragging about grabbing women by the pussy.
Showmanship remains central to Mr. Trump, who on Thursday held his first meeting as president-elect with a foreign leader, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. The setting was Mr. Trump’s marble and gold, Louis XIV-style residence on the 58th floor, with sweeping views of New York and Central Park. Mr. Trump, with General Flynn at his side, sat next to Mr. Abe under an enormous crystal chandelier as Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, looked on.
The vulgarity of the setting was striking. I have no doubt it all cost billions, but that doesn’t make it not vulgar.
He is worried, his aides say, that he will not be able to keep his Android phone once he gets to the White House and wonders aloud how isolated he will become — and whether he will be able to keep in touch with his friends — without it as president. He continues to discuss with the Secret Service how much he can return on weekends to Trump Tower, and still expects to use the Bedminister golf club and his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., as vacation retreats.
Again – he should have taken all this on board before deciding to campaign for the presidency.
A surprisingly sharp rebuke from Mr. Trump
Nov 19th, 2016 10:50 am | By Ophelia BensonWhat happened at last night’s performance of “Hamilton.”
With Vice President-elect Mike Pence attending the show, the cast used the opportunity to make a statement emphasizing the need for the new administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump, a Republican, to work on behalf of all Americans.
It was a deeply felt and altogether rare appeal from the stage of a Broadway show — and it drew a surprisingly sharp rebuke from Mr. Trump on Saturday morning. The president-elect tweeted that the “Hamilton” cast had “harassed” Mr. Pence by making the statement and had been “very rude.”
“Apologize!” Mr. Trump wrote at the end of one of two tweets on the matter.
“Surprisingly” sharp? Hardly. “Surprisingly” compared to what one would expect of an adult, reasonable, civic-minded president-elect, but not “surprisingly” at all from the belligerent sadistic narcissistic bully that is Trump. Trump considers his own rudeness the very best rudeness, and rudeness directed at him or his an offense against the universe.
As the play ended, the actor who played Aaron Burr, Brandon Victor Dixon, acknowledged that Mr. Pence was in the audience, thanked him for attending and added, “We hope you will hear us out.”
“We, sir — we — are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” he said. “We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”
The audience applauded and cheered. Pence was already in the hall but stopped to listen.
The statement that Mr. Dixon read was written by the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, its director, Thomas Kail, and the lead producer, Jeffrey Seller, with input from cast members, Mr. Seller said.
“We had to ask ourselves, how do we cope with this?” Mr. Seller said. “Our cast could barely go on stage the day after the election. The election was painful and crushing to all of us here. We all struggled with what was the appropriate and respectful and proper response. We are honored that Mr. Pence attended the show, and we had to use this opportunity to express our feelings.”
Mr. Seller said that there was some discussion about whether it was appropriate to inject a political statement into the night, and that those involved decided to wait until the end of the performance. He said no cast members had skipped the performance to protest Mr. Pence’s appearance.
In normal circumstances I think I would probably consider it inappropriate, if only because we don’t want political speeches from all sides at the end of every play…but probably more because it would look like self-righteous preening, as things like that so often do. But these circumstances? Not normal.
Trump objects to all this outrageous rudeness
Nov 19th, 2016 10:04 am | By Ophelia BensonTwitter Trump tweets again.
Will be working all weekend in choosing the great men and women who will be helping to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2016
He thinks it’s noteworthy that he will be working all weekend. Dude. That’s the job. It’s the job he signed up for, it’s the job he trampled all over people to get, yet he’s bragging/complaining about working over the weekend.
Then he tells us how happy he is that he succeeded in cheating people out of as much as $35k with his laughable fake “university” with only a token payout to settle the lawsuit.
I settled the Trump University lawsuit for a small fraction of the potential award because as President I have to focus on our country.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016
The ONLY bad thing about winning the Presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016
The cheating fraud gets away with it again – and he’s president! Is this a great country or what?
Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing.This should not happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016
The Theater must always be a safe and special place.The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016
Trump complaining about people being rude. Trump complaining about people being rude. The mind reels.
Also, of course, Trump demanding a safe place…the jokes write themselves.
Milo agrees he does like offending people
Nov 18th, 2016 5:52 pm | By Ophelia BensonChannel 4 News (the UK one):
This is the moment Milo Yiannopoulos is challenged on Breitbart’s headlines and so-called “post-fact era.”
The news outlet’s former chairman Steve Bannon has been appointed as Donald Trump’s chief strategist – and there’s speculation that Yiannopoulos himself could find his own way into the White House.
Go there to see their excerpt, or here is the full interview:
He says himself he’s a troll:
You know perfectly well that it is a provocation designed to make people think and perhaps to make them laugh.
In other words, trolling.
At about 4:40 he’s even more explicit:
I do like offending people. I think that the grievance brigade, victimhood, you know the idea that hurt feelings are some kind of special currency, I think that’s come to an end, and America agrees.
It’s classic bully-speak, that. People are hurt by insults, therefore it’s important to insult them incessantly so that they will stop objecting to being insulted. People are hurt by insults, therefore it’s important to insult them incessantly to make them shut up and go away and let you run the show.
It’s wrong. It’s evil, and wrong. Sure, ideally, it’s useful for people to be tough and resilient – but those aren’t actual virtues or good qualities. They’re just useful. Yes people who melt down over every tiny thing are maddening, and should learn to do better. But people not liking to be insulted? There’s nothing unreasonable about that, and it’s revolting to watch smug Yiannopoulos boasting of doing it on purpose because he likes offending people.
But no doubt Trump will make him Labor Secretary or something.
Troll seizes White House
Nov 18th, 2016 5:07 pm | By Ophelia BensonFresh Air yesterday talked to Joshua Green, a Bloomberg reporter who knows a lot about Steve Bannon.
DAVIES: In 2012, when Steve Bannon was the executive editor of Breitbart, he established a research arm – the Government Accountability Institute. What does it do?
GREEN: Well, Bannon – what attracted me to Bannon originally was that, you know, if you look at kind of the infrastructure, the organizational chart of the Republican right-wing, what Hillary Clinton once referred to as the vast right-wing conspiracy, what you see is that a lot of the tendrils lead back to Steve Bannon. So not only was Bannon executive chairman of Breitbart News, but then with some of the same financial backers, he started the Government Accountability Institute which is a nonprofit research organization based in Tallahassee. And whereas Breitbart is gleefully provocative and hard right, the conceit at GAI is that this is a research organization that is going to do digging and stick to the realm of facts, and they’re going to investigate corruption in cronyism in government, be it Republican or Democrat. GAI was a pretty sleepy shop.
But what really brought GAI into the forefront was that GAI’s president, Peter Schweizer, wrote the book “Clinton Cash” that became an unexpected best-seller back in the spring of 2015, just as Hillary Clinton was getting ready to launch her presidential campaign. It drove up her unfavorability ratings, and it raised all sorts of pernicious questions about who Clinton – in the Clinton Foundation had financial relationships with and whether or not this was going to be a problem in her presidential campaign.
It was clear, I think, from the scope and tenor of the coverage that there was really something there. And that is the other way, I think, in which Bannon has been able to hack mainstream media news coverage because these “Clinton Cash” stories and the various relationships that the book documented were intentionally not published on right-wing sites like Breitbart News. What GAI did instead was to reach out to investigative reporters and mainstream media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and others and try and encourage their reporters to take this research that they’d done and to go off and do some digging on their own. And they did, and that wound up resulting in front-page stories in a lot of major newspapers that got this negative information about Clinton in front of a whole different audience than reads Breitbart News or listens to talk radio.
And if you look at how Donald Trump chose to run against Clinton in the general election, Trump was essentially channeling the same attacks that Bannon had conceived and pushed in the “Clinton Cash” book. And so – and, you know, so ultimately, you know, he succeeded in this year’s-long plan to plot and carry off the downfall of Hillary Clinton.
They planned it, and it worked. We’re all living in Breitbart world now.
DAVIES: You know, there’s a lot of consternation, criticism, alarm about the appointment of Bannon to a senior-level position in the Trump White House. The concern is that it suggests a tolerance, if not embrace, of racism and anti-Semitism. What about the idea that Breitbart News itself propagates, you know, white supremacist views? I mean, The New York Times editorial on this said to scroll through Breitbart’s headlines is to come upon a parallel universe where black people do nothing but commit crimes, immigrants rape native-born daughters and feminists want to castrate men. The Southern Poverty Law Center says he made Breitbart News a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill.
What’s your sense of the content of Breitbart News?
GREEN: Well, it is certainly inflammatory and fixated on race, on religion, on all the sorts of things that have upset people. I think the thing to understand about Breitbart – and this is not to excuse anything they write or publish – is that they are deliberately provocative. They’re aiming to offend and upset people in order to stoke the grassroots anger at government and the broader culture.
In internet language, it’s an elaborate and effective trolling operation because that is what martials this group of disaffected Republicans, you know, and other people sometimes referred to as the alt-right, but essentially this splinter faction of conservatives who have attacked and now taken over the Republican Party over the last four or five years.
We’re all living in Breitbart world, where we’re governed by trolls.
DAVIES: You know, it’s one thing if white supremacists read Breitbart News and if they write shocking comments in response to the stories. But as you look at the content, I mean, does the website seem to, you know, embrace and propagate these views of white nationalism and white supremacists? What’s your sense?
GREEN: I think it certainly fuels those views. And, you know, I had a discussion with Bannon about this back in 2015 about – you know, I said, you know, you’re a former Harvard guy, you’re a Goldman Sachs banker. I’m sort of shocked at some of the things you write because you come out of a culture that isn’t, you know, openly racist or anti-Semitic.
And what he said essentially was that they are trying to reach an audience that doesn’t have an outlet anywhere else in mainstream media. I pulled up some of the quotes. He said, you know, we focus on things like immigration, ISIS, race riots, what he calls the persecution of Christians. He says, we give a perspective that other outlets are not going to give. There are not a lot of outlets that are covering that, at least not from the perspective that we should be running a victory lap every time some sort of traditional value gets undercut.
The question I was always interested in getting at with Bannon was do you really believe this stuff – because a lot of it is offensive and inflammatory. And he said, you know, personally I’m mixed on a lot of this stuff. But we’re airing a lot of things that traditional people are thinking that don’t get mainstream media representation anymore. So they were making a market for these kinds of views and these kinds of stories and attracting an audience, what’s turned out to be an extremely large and powerful audience by tapping these sentiments.
That’s an incredibly callous thing to say, if that really is his reason for doing it. We don’t need a “market for these kinds of views and these kinds of stories.” That’s not a gap that needs to be filled. We don’t need to create a market for sadistic torture porn, for instance, and we don’t need to create a market for racist misogynist trolling and bullying. That’s not something humanity needs.
DAVIES: There are petitions circulating urging Trump to reverse the hiring of Steve Bannon. Why is he so loyal to Steve Bannon?
GREEN: There’s been so much kind of shock and consternation about how a guy like Bannon who is so far outside the bounds of anybody who’d typically be considered for, you know, a West Wing position gets elevated to one, I think it’s important to remember what we’ve just witnessed and what Trump himself has just seen that Bannon – and this is what originally attracted me to him as a profile subject – is a smart guy and a clever strategist who orchestrated this elaborate plan to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency that we’ve just watched work. It succeeded.
And so I think that Trump has a degree of faith in Bannon that he doesn’t have in another people. And I think that’s why Trump has been willing to withstand all the intense criticism over the Bannon appointment that we’ve seen in the last few days. To me it’s sort of like the least shocking aspect of what Trump has done in appointing Bannon to the West Wing. I mean, the guy hatched this elaborate plan to stop Clinton, and it worked.
Of course. Plus, Trump is a very bad man, so the fact that Bannon is also a very bad man isn’t going to trouble him.
Trump agrees he cheated those students
Nov 18th, 2016 4:39 pm | By Ophelia BensonIn more bad news, Trump has settled the lawsuits against Trump “University.”
Donald J. Trump has reversed course and agreed to pay $25 million to settle a series of lawsuits stemming from his defunct for-profit education venture, Trump University, finally putting to rest fraud allegations by former students, which have dogged him for years and hampered his presidential campaign.
The settlement was announced by the New York attorney general on Friday, just 10 days before one of the cases, a federal class-action lawsuit in San Diego, was set to be heard by a jury. The deal, if approved, averts a potentially embarrassing and highly unusual predicament: a president-elect on trial, and possibly even taking the stand in his own defense, while scrambling to build his incoming administration.
It was a remarkable concession from a real estate mogul who derides legal settlements and has mocked fellow businessmen who agree to them.
But the allegations in the case were highly unpleasant for Mr. Trump: Students paid up to $35,000 in tuition for programs that, according to the testimony of former Trump University employees, used high-pressure sales tactics and employed unqualified instructors.
Also, teaching some tricks of the real estate trade does not constitute a university. A trade school, maybe; a university, no.
the position of Mr. Trump and his legal team appeared to soften soon after his election on Nov. 8. At a hearing last week, Daniel Petrocelli, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, expressed interest in moving toward a settlement. Mr. Trump’s lawyers were seeking to delay the trial in one of the California cases until after his inauguration on Jan. 20, while also requesting that he be allowed to testify on video.
“The time and attention to prepare and testify will take him away from imperative transition work at a critical time,” Mr. Petrocelli wrote in the request to the judge, Gonzalo Curiel, last week, noting the “thousands” of appointments that President-elect Trump needed to make in the weeks ahead.
Judge Curiel, of Federal District Court, who is hearing the two California cases, was thrust into the limelight of the campaign in May when Mr. Trump spent several minutes at a rally denouncing the judge’s decisions in the case, calling him a “hater” and questioning his impartiality because of his Mexican heritage.
That’s our shiny new president – a guy who cheats people out of as much as 35 thousand dollars for teaching them some marketing tricks they could learn from a pamphlet, and who incites xenophobia against a judge hearing the case against him. Don’t we feel proud!!
Trump University, which operated from 2004 to 2010, included free introductory seminars across the country, focusing largely on real estate investing and on learning Mr. Trump’s secrets. Students could then purchase more expensive packages costing up to $35,000.
Documents made public through the litigation revealed that some former Trump University managers had given testimony about its unscrupulous and exploitative business practices. One sales executive testified that the operation was “a facade, a total lie.” Another manager called it a “fraudulent scheme.”
Other records showed how Mr. Trump had overstated the depth of his involvement in the programs. Despite claims that Mr. Trump had handpicked instructors, he acknowledged in testimony that he had not.
That’s our shiny new president – a cheat and fraud who could take his place alongside the Duke and the Dauphin. If only he could share their fate.
Anyway. The settlement is bad news, because the trial would have made him look even worse.
So our shiny new president has admitted to cheating a lot of people out of a lot of money. Good start.
The kids sat in on the meeting with that guy from Japan
Nov 18th, 2016 4:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonAgain the mind reels. Ivanka Trump sat in on the meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister yesterday. Fortune says this is tinpot oligarchy behavior.
President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly said that there would be no conflicts of interest during his administration because his vast business empire would be in a “blind trust.” But White House ethics lawyers in both parties have criticized that, noting that having his children run the company means it would be neither blind nor a trust.
The very first meeting that the President-elect held with a world leader, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is prompting further criticism—even alarm. According to photographs taken at Trump Tower in New York City and published this week, the session was attended by Ivanka Trump, who has no government security clearance and is an executive at the Trump Organization.
“This is not the way we behave in the world’s leading constitutional democracy,” says Norman Eisen, special counsel and ethics adviser to President Barack Obama between 2009 and 2011. “It’s like something out of a tin-pot oligarchy.”
Members of the press were also barred from the meeting, adding to building criticism that a President Trump will not honor White House traditions of transparency. Ivanka Trump’s presence apparently only became public because the Japanese government released photos; it is not clear whether she was present for the entire meeting.
Ivanka Trump sat in on her father's meeting today with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, per handout photo pic.twitter.com/tEbfYYeJFA
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) November 18, 2016
Jared Kushner was also there.
In an interview with Fortune, Eisen says Ivanka Trump and Kushner’s apparent presence at Trump’s first face-to-face meeting with the leader of one of our key allies was “shocking” and unprecedented. “If you’ve got one member of the power couple—Jared Kushner, whispering in the President[-elect]’s ear—and if you’ve got the other, the wife and daughter, who is running businesses, it merges the Trump Organization and the United States into one huge conglomerate managed by the Trumps for their own interests,” he says.
He adds that the fear is that their involvement will turn “our intelligence community into a management consulting firm for the Trump family business. That can’t be right. Ivanka must go, and Kushner can’t stay.”
Eisen and Richard Painter, White House ethics adviser to President George W. Bush between 2005 and 2007, on Tuesday wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post urging Trump to put his “conflict-generating assets in a true blind trust run by an independent trustee.”
Unlike most other federal employees, the President of the United States isn’t bound by the federal conflict of interest law. But Eisen tells Fortune that several lawyers, including those who are part of the Republican party, are “worried about this unprecedented blurring of lines” and President-elect Trump should “expect massive litigation if he proceeds on this collision course.”
Most racist ever, most incompetent ever, most rapey ever, most conflict of interested ever. Shaping up well.
Operation #TrumpCup
Nov 18th, 2016 3:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonApparently the latest trend is for conservatives to go to Starbucks and order a drink and when the barista asks for the name on the order they say “Trump.”
This means the liberal company run by famously liberal CEO Howard Schultz is now shouting “Trump!” from behind the counter several thousand times a day all across the country.
Conservatives who’ve never shopped at Starbucks are now dropping in to pull this stunt. They’re right now busy organizing trips to their local franchise via social media and posting pictures of their orders on Twitter and Facebook.
#TrumpCup is currently trending on Twitter.
Which conservatives find hilarious.
And it IS hilarious.
Especially when you realize Trump is getting his revenge on those who opposed his candidacy by having tens of thousands of his supporters buy $12 coffee drinks from his enemies.
A very cunning plan.
Get out of jail free card
Nov 18th, 2016 3:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonTurkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has brought a motion to Parliament that proposes rapists in Turkish jails be released if they marry their victims, a way out of prison for more than 4,000 inmates convicted of rape.
The motion was brought to the floor of the General Assembly and was approved by AKP deputies despite the nay votes of both the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
So the raped women get to spend the rest of their lives being raped by the guys who raped them in the first place, so that those guys can get out of prison where they were placed because they raped women. It’s as if someone breaks into your house to grab all your books and coffee mugs, and then when they’re in jail for doing that they get to leave jail if they consent to take all your stuff. It’s a win-win for the taker, but not so much for the taker’s victim.
A majority of votes was lacking during the general assembly vote on the motion on Thursday, thus making it impossible to convert the motion to the status of a bill. At least 184 votes are needed in Parliament to pass a bill.
A second round of voting will take place on Friday.
I guess the women of Turkey will just have to stay home now.
Updating to add: Seth pointed out a BBC story which gives vital details.
A bill which would allow men accused of raping underage girls to be cleared if they marry the girl has been preliminarily backed by Turkish MPs.
The bill would pardon men only if they had sex without “force or threat” and if they married the victim.
Critics say it legitimises rape and child marriage, and lets off men who are aware of their crime.
It certainly does. It would be just a way for a guy to force an underage girl to marry him, thus ruining her entire life.
What are those MPs thinking? Is this that same old “Wull it was good enough for Mohammed so it’s blasphemy to say it’s not ok for our handsome young men”? Because that’s a terrible argument.
